Report: Cybersecurity Anxiety is Driving Organizations Toward Costly Data Protection Measures

Blancco Technology Group has released new research suggesting that many organizations are destroying working devices at a high rate to protect against data leaks, even though many report confidence in their data sanitization processes.

According to the survey, 38% of organizations have suffered a data leak in the last twelve months. The most common cause of a data leak was improper network configurations (46%), with a significant number due to redeployed devices or drives storing sensitive data (32%), lost devices (42%) and stolen devices (25%).

While data leaks are less common than deliberate data breaches (reported by 58% of organizations), they remain a significant issue, with many leaks attributable to improper data handling during decommissioning.

Despite these findings, there are high levels of confidence in data sanitization procedures. For example, 73% of respondents said they were “very” or “extremely” confident that their devices were entirely free of sensitive data before disposal, with an additional 21% saying that they were “moderately confident.” As true data sanitization renders data beyond recovery, the findings suggest these levels of confidence may be misplaced.

The report also found that many organizations continue to destroy working devices despite confidence in their sanitization procedures. A significant 43% of mobile devices, 35% of laptops and desktop PCs, and 44% of data center assets remain functional at the time of destruction, indicating many could potentially be redeployed when proper data destruction procedures are in place.

This comes at a time when rising memory and storage costs are driving up the price of PCs, smartphones, and other IT hardware. The findings suggest cybersecurity anxiety is leading organizations toward protecting data by destroying fully functional devices, even when doing so may lead to much higher costs.

Regulations are the number one driver of end-of-life data management changes (41%) made by organizations in the past year, followed by sustainability goals (35%) and changes in data storage technologies (34%).

Regulatory compliance is also driving investment, with 60% of respondents spending more on data privacy and protection, with an average increase of 40% more than the previous year.

High levels of confidence and increased spending are not translating into universal best practice in data sanitization. Software-based data sanitization before a device disconnected from the network ensures the lowest level of risk and is considered best practice – but is only followed by 32% of respondents for mobile devices, 18% for laptops and desktop PCs, and 23% for data center assets.

The Blancco 2026 State of Data Sanitization Report is based on the responses of 1,460 cybersecurity, IT, compliance and sustainability leaders from across North America, Europe, and APAC.

Channel Impact^®
The report unpacks how some of the world’s largest organizations are managing end-of-life devices and sensitive data amid changing regulations, evolving security strategies and AI adoption.